Last updated: December 12, 2024
Google Analytics 4 is our next-generation measurement solution, and it has replaced Universal Analytics. To maintain your website measurement, you'll need a Google Analytics 4 property. If you haven't already, make the switch to Google Analytics 4.
Understand the migration timeline
Starting the week of July 1, 2024: You will not have access to any current or historical Universal Analytics data and most users will lose access to the interface and the API on this date. For some properties it may take longer. All properties visible after July 1, 2024 will show a banner that they are queued for deletion. Universal Analytics 360 properties currently in an active BigQuery backfill will show in the interface for the full duration of that backfill. Correctly configured BigQuery backfills that start on or before June 30, 2024 will continue until completion, even if that date is after July 1, 2024.
After July 1, 2024, once a property does not show in the interface, you should consider your property shut down.
While the Universal Analytics standard sunset took some time to complete, the full Universal Analytics shutdown will happen on July 1st or within the week for most users. We know your data is important to you, and we recommend that you export your previously processed data before this date.
Product integrations
Universal Analytics data and settings accessed or used through advertiser, publisher or other product integrations will be unavailable when services have stopped. For example:
- Universal Analytics goals and ecommerce transactions will stop measuring new conversions, including those within linked advertising accounts. This may affect ad campaign performance if those conversions are used in combination with Smart Bidding.
- Universal Analytics audience lists will be closed, which may affect ad campaign media activation and performance.
- API requests related to Universal Analytics properties will fail, including requests for deletion of Universal Analytics data through the User Deletion API. This also means that tools relying on an API, such as Looker Studio, will not show any Universal Analytics data.
- BigQuery export and backfill of historical data from Universal Analytics 360 properties can only be requested up to and including June 30, 2024. Already exported data remains available in BigQuery.
- Attribution projects that were part of Attribution (beta) in Google Analytics will be deleted.
Download your data: To maintain access to data from your Universal Analytics property, you should download or export your data now. If this isn’t done through one of the methods provided below, your data will be permanently deleted by Google and won’t be recoverable.
Find out which properties will be deleted
Your Google Analytics account will continue to work, but after July 1, you will only see GA4 properties in your account. If you have not created a GA4 property yet, you will see no property at all in your account. You can recognize Universal Analytics properties based on the tracking code, which starts with “UA-” followed by a series of numbers, e.g. UA-000000-1. You’ll also find a red banner at the top of all UA properties, indicating the need to migrate to GA4.
What's happened so far
- Starting March 2023: If you didn't manually migrate your active standard Universal Analytics property to a new Google Analytics 4 property and didn't opt out of an automatic property creation, we created a Google Analytics 4 property on your behalf. Automatically created Google Analytics 4 properties reuse existing site tags whenever possible.
- Starting July 1, 2023: Standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing hits, including standard properties in accounts that also contain 360 properties. Some properties continued to process data for a short period after this as we staged the shutdown of Universal Analytics. You'll be able to access your previously processed data in your Universal Analytics property until July 1, 2024.
For Google Analytics 360 customers
- Starting January 1, 2024: As previously announced, migration to Google Analytics 4 is necessary in part due to a constantly changing technology and regulatory ecosystem. As we shift resources to focus on building Google Analytics 4, so that it satisfies those technological and regulatory demands, we can't guarantee that all features and functionalities in Universal Analytics 360 continue to work as expected.
- January 29, 2024: The following Universal Analytics features will be deprecated as we shift resources to focus on Google Analytics 4. To find the corresponding advertising and measurement features in Google Analytics 4, consult the feature comparison table on this page.
- Advertising features:
- Realtime reports
- Measurement features:
- Lifetime Value report
- Model Explorer
- Cohort Analysis
- iTunes Conversion Tracking
- Conversion Probability report
- GDN Impression Beta
- Advertising features:
- Early March, 2024: The following Universal Analytics features will be deprecated as we shift resources to focus on Google Analytics 4. Google Analytics 4 was designed to be able to evolve for the future and built with privacy at its core. To find the corresponding advertising and measurement features in Google Analytics 4, consult the feature comparison table on this page.
- Advertising features:
- Deprecated for traffic in the European Economic Area (EEA): these features will continue to be available for traffic outside of the EEA.
- Remarketing, key event export and bidding optimization
- Daily BigQuery Export of data provided by linked Google advertising products: Google Ads, Search Ads 360, Display Video 360, Campaign Manager 360, Google AdSense, and Google Ad Manager
- Drop of ad-click identifiers such as GCLID and DCLID can impact the attribution of credit of conversions to ad clicks from Google Ads, Publisher, and GMP Media integrations. There may be an increase in direct/none or google/organic traffic unless UTM parameters are present in the URL.
- Deprecated for all traffic: these features will no longer be supported inside or outside the EEA.
- Demographic and Interest reports
- Publisher reporting
- Phone Analytics
- Event and Salesforce Data Import
- Realtime BigQuery Export
- Deprecated for traffic in the European Economic Area (EEA): these features will continue to be available for traffic outside of the EEA.
- Measurement features:
- Deprecated for all traffic: these features will no longer be supported inside or outside the EEA.
- Universal Analytics property creation
- App Views in Universal Analytics that receive data via the UA SDK or Measurement Protocol.
- Unsampled reports. All queries above 1 million sessions will now be subject to sampling.
- Custom Tables
- Annotations
- Deprecated for all traffic: these features will no longer be supported inside or outside the EEA.
- Advertising features:
- March 2024: We recommend that Universal Analytics 360 users switch to Google Analytics 4 and complete historical data export no later than March 2024. This will support a smooth transition to GA4 and allow users to have three months to validate data and settings. By March, you should:
- Migrate your Universal Analytics property's Google Ads links to your Google Analytics 4 property and do one or both of the following in your Google Ads account:
- Create Google Ads conversions based on GA4 key events and switch to bidding on them instead of the corresponding Universal Analytics conversions.
- Add Google Analytics 4 audiences to a campaign or ad group (for remarketing).
- Export historical data using one or more of the solutions outlined below.
- Migrate your Universal Analytics property's Google Ads links to your Google Analytics 4 property and do one or both of the following in your Google Ads account:
- Starting the week of July 1, 2024: You won't be able to access any Universal Analytics properties or the API (not even with read-only access), and all data will be deleted. While the standard sunset took weeks to complete, the full Universal Analytics shutdown will happen within a week. We know your data is important to you, and we recommend that you export your previously processed data before this date.
Deprecated Universal Analytics features and corresponding Google Analytics 4 features
The following two tables detail the Universal Analytics features to be deprecated on January 29, 2024 and in early March, 2024.
Consult the following table to find the corresponding GA4 features for your use cases for UA features deprecated on January 29, 2024:
| Use case | Traffic location | Deprecated UA feature | Corresponding GA4 feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising features | All traffic inside and outside the EEA | Realtime reports | GA4 Realtime report |
| Measurement features | All traffic inside and outside the EEA | Lifetime Value report | GA4 User lifetime exploration |
| Model Explorer | |||
| Cohort Analysis | GA4 Cohort exploration | ||
| iTunes Conversion Tracking | GA4 App conversion tracking | ||
| Conversion Probability report | GA4 Predictive metrics | ||
| GDN Impression Beta | Attribution reporting |
Consult the following table to find the corresponding GA4 features for your use cases for UA features deprecated in early March, 2024:
| Use case | Traffic location | Deprecated UA feature | Corresponding GA4 feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising features | Traffic in the European Economic Area (EEA) |
|
|
| Daily BigQuery Export of data provided by linked Google advertising products | GA4 BigQuery Export schema | ||
| All traffic inside and outside the EEA | Demographics and Interest reports | GA4 Demographic details report | |
| Publisher reporting | Google Ad Manager data in GA4 | ||
| Phone Analytics | GA4 Measurement Protocol | ||
| Event and Salesforce Data Import | GA4 Data Import | ||
| Realtime BigQuery Export | GA4 BigQuery Export | ||
| Measurement features | All traffic inside and outside the EEA | Create a Universal Analytics property | Create a Google Analytics 4 property |
| App SDK | GA4 SDK | ||
| Unsampled reports | GA4 Unsampled explorations | ||
| Custom Tables | GA4 Custom reports | ||
| Annotations | Future enhancement |
Frequently asked questions
Expand all Collapse all When will my Universal Analytics property go away?All users, including those accessing 360 properties, will lose access to the Universal Analytics user interface and API starting on July 1, 2024.
There are several ways to export data from your Universal Analytics property:
- Export individual reports into the following formats:
- CSV
- TSV
- TSV for Excel
- Excel (XLSX)
- Google Sheets
- Use the Google Analytics Reporting API to export data to Cloud storage and connect to Looker Studio. Learn more about available dimensions and metrics, APIs, and API quotas
- Install the Google Sheets add-on for Analytics and follow these instructions to archive your data
- Google Analytics 360 customers can also export to BigQuery
Unless your Universal Analytics property is linked to your Google Ads account, your Google Ads account will be unaffected. However, if your Universal Analytics property and Google Ads account is linked, Universal Analytics data stopped flowing to Google Ads beginning on July 1, 2023. (July 1, 2024 for Analytics 360 properties.) This could affect your Google Ads campaigns if you're:
- bidding on imported Universal Analytics goals or ecommerce transactions
- using a Universal Analytics audience in your campaigns or ad groups
- importing Universal Analytics site metrics
We suggest you migrate your Universal Analytics property's Google Ads links to your Google Analytics 4 property. Next, if applicable, you should create Google Ads conversions based on GA4 key events (for bidding) and/or add Google Analytics 4 audiences to a campaign or ad group (for remarketing).
Visit the Google Ads help center for more information:
Yes. However, deleting your Universal Analytics property may in some instances affect your Google Analytics 4 property. If you reused your Universal Analytics tagging to send data to your GA4 property, deleting the Universal Analytics property may stop data flow to your GA4 property, and you’ll need to set up a new Google tag. Learn more about the Google tag. Proceed with deletion of your Universal Analytics property only if you’re certain you no longer need data to flow to your GA4 property or other configured destinations.
For Google Analytics 4 properties that rely on Universal Analytics tagging for data collection, there is no additional risk when those Universal Analytics properties are shut down and deleted by Google. Once Google deletes your Universal Analytics property we’ll automatically continue to use your Universal Analytics tagging for your Google Analytics 4 property, however only if your UA tags are still on your website. If you decide to remove your UA tags, you can replace them with a Google tag.
What happens to my UA connected site tag?
If you've been using connected site tags to send data from your Universal Analytics property to your Google Analytics 4 property, your settings will be saved on July 1st, 2024. This snapshot of your settings will continue to be used to send data to your GA4 property even after your Universal Analytics properties have been deleted. Any changes applied to your Universal Analytics property on or after July 1st might not be applied. If you delete your GA4 property, we will also remove the connected site tag. Legacy UA tags with connected site tags could lead to inconsistent data reports and could prevent access to Google tag features like enhanced measurement events and limited API commands. To leverage the full set of Google tag features, install the Google tag directly on your site or use Google Tag Manager.
Can I still access historical data from UA App Views?
You can check for historical data through BigQuery provided that the BigQuery project is linked with that UA App View and has exported that data successfully.
Note that BigQuery export and backfill of historical data from UA 360 properties can only be requested up to June 30, 2024. Already exported data remains available in BigQuery.